Critics of Florida Black history standards rally outside Duval County schools headquarters

Steve Patterson, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union
·2 min read
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A group of protesters rally outside the Duval County School Board's headquarters Tuesday to oppose the new state-mandated Black history teaching standards, which critics fault as whitewashing that talks about slaves gaining job skills as a result of slavery.
A group of protesters rally outside the Duval County School Board's headquarters Tuesday to oppose the new state-mandated Black history teaching standards, which critics fault as whitewashing that talks about slaves gaining job skills as a result of slavery.
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Critics of new statewide directions for teaching Black history in public schools carried signs and chanted outside the Duval County School Board’s Southbank headquarters before the board met Tuesday evening.

“History is not a crime! Tell the truth and not a lie,” shouted the crowd of close to 100 people ridiculing standards that have become entwined with Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential aspirations and drew a rebuke from Vice President Kamala Harris during a visit to Jacksonville last month.

Critics urged the School Board to adopt a resolution rejecting the standards, which have been widely ridiculed as whitewashing the past by referencing Blacks benefitting from skills gained in forced labor.

“If folks don’t know, slave labor was skilled labor,” Michael Sampson II, a labor union organizer, told the gathering that included teachers, students and members of civic organizations such as the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville.

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Englewood High School 2023 graduate Nadege Sainsurin, 18, talks to a crowd rallying outside the Duval Coutny School Board against new state standards for teaching Black history.
Englewood High School 2023 graduate Nadege Sainsurin, 18, talks to a crowd rallying outside the Duval Coutny School Board against new state standards for teaching Black history.

He said faulty teaching can “keep us in mental slavery” and that young people deserve to know a complete accounting of Black history.

Researchers have said Africans abducted into slavery often had knowledge such as farming techniques for warm-weather crops that slaveholders used to develop plantations in the American republic’s early years.

Elwood Thompson, a charter school history teacher and former Duval school system employee, compared talk of slavery’s benefits to efforts to downplay heat waves caused by climate change.

At a rallly outside the Duval County School Board headquarters, Candace Hamilton holds a sign with a historic photograph of a slave who was severely whipped by a plantation overseer. Protesters gathered ahead of the School Board's meeting Tuesday to denounce standards for teaching Black history that reference gaining job skills through slavery.
At a rallly outside the Duval County School Board headquarters, Candace Hamilton holds a sign with a historic photograph of a slave who was severely whipped by a plantation overseer. Protesters gathered ahead of the School Board's meeting Tuesday to denounce standards for teaching Black history that reference gaining job skills through slavery.

People soft-peddling slavery’s effects “can burn in climate change,” he said.

A procession of speakers echoed a similar message later that evening during the School Board meeting's public comment period.

“When are we going to say enough is enough? Why are we teaching our children lies?” audience member Kate Dobbins said. “…I am so disgusted,” she added.

The resolution demonstrators wanted the School Board to pass hasn’t been filed yet, said Monica Gold, a middle-school English teacher with the Duval Coalition of Rank (and File) Educators, called Duval CORE. But Gold said she expects opponents of the new teaching standards will continue to press for action, saying the subject is too important to give up on.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: 'Tell the truth;' Rally at Duval School Board pans Black history rules